Commission staff working document
: THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON EMPLOYMENT
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- 2.1: OVERALL IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON EMPLOYMENT
- 2.2: SECTORAL IMPACT OF CLIMATE-CHANGE POLICIES
- 2.3: CLIMATE-CHANGE POLICIES AND SKILLS
- 2.4: THE TRANSITION TO A LOW-CARBON ECONOMY
2: THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON EMPLOYMENTThis section examines the impact of climate change on employment, looking at its overall impact, impact on specific sectors, and changes that will need to be made to skills levels. With the issue of climate change becoming ever more prominent, companies will have to adapt to evolving regulatory frameworks, such as constraints on CO2 emissions for car manufacturers and the EU’s CO2 Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). These policies are likely to lead to restructuring, at least in some sectors and for some businesses. The adjustments needed to respond to climate-change polices aimed at cutting CO2 emissions provide a clear example of a restructuring process. There are many opportunities — for example through the early adoption of innovative new technology — to place European firms ahead of global competitors that are slower to anticipate change. Conversely, a failure to anticipate by European firms may lead to hasty, reactive and forced later adjustment, which could damage companies and leave their employees inadequately prepared, or trained, for alternative employment. Companies will need to adapt their current products, processes and technology to develop new innovative solutions and workers will also need to acquire new skills. These issues are also dealt with in chapter 3 of the European Commission’s Employment in Europe 2009 Report, which focuses on green jobs.163 To support workers, companies and their representatives in their efforts to anticipate and cope with climate-change implications, the European Commission organised a Restructuring Forum on the impact of climate change on employment on 22-23 June 2009. It was attended by around 300 stakeholders, including representatives of Member States, social partners and academic experts. In preparation for the Forum, a study analysing the Impact of climate change on employment was carried out by GHK Consulting on behalf of the Commission’s Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion.164 Below, the main findings of the report and Forum are summarised. 2.1: OVERALL IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON EMPLOYMENTClimate change can have two kinds of impact on employment. First, there are the direct physical effects, caused by factors such as changes in temperatures and precipitation levels, rising sea levels and changes to the frequency of extreme climatic events. Due to the gradual warming process over many decades, most of these impacts will be felt in the medium to long term. In April 2009, the European Commission presented a policy White Paper, Adapting to climate change: Towards a European framework for action ,165 which presents the framework for adaptation measures and policies to reduce the EU’s vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. Second, in the short to medium term, most of the impact will come from the effects of climate-change-related policies. Climate-change policies will lead to restructuring by affecting both the supply side and the demand side of businesses. Climate-change mitigation and adaptation policies will lead to higher compliance costs (especially in the form of higher energy prices ADD "in the mid-term"), which may lead to competitive disadvantages, especially for businesses subject to strong international competition with countries where climate-change policies differ significantly from those in the EU Companies will have to respond to changing customer demands that reflect climate-change policies, taking measures to reduce barriers and promote innovation in response to market threats and opportunities. Climate-change policies are therefore likely to have an impact on all businesses in some way. On the macroeconomic level, there have been a few estimates of what the impact might be of meeting carbon reduction targets, in terms of the net effect on GDP levels (global, European or national) and the potential level of investment required to attain these levels of reduction. These suggest that in aggregate the overall impact is modest and that costs will largely be compensated by the opportunity to take competitive advantage from the structural changes triggered by climate-change policies. 2.2: SECTORAL IMPACT OF CLIMATE-CHANGE POLICIESAlthough climate-change policies seem likely to have only a small net effect on employment overall, there are likely to be significant gross impacts, in terms of both job creation and job destruction. Managing these processes will pose a major challenge to labour markets and stakeholders, and this was the main focus of the Commission’s Restructuring Forum in June 2009.166 The different employment impacts of climate-change policy and the transition to a low-carbon economy are illustrated by a 2008 analysis from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which found that the ‘greening’ of the economy will affect employment in four ways:
Source: Adapted from UNEP/ILO (2009) ‘Green Jobs: Towards decent work in a sustainable, low-carbon world’.167 At the same time, climate-change policies will affect every sector differently. Some may simply absorb the impacts (such as higher energy prices) in their normal business model. However, some sectors are more susceptible to these polices. There are four main sector-specific economic impacts of climate-change policy:
A 2008 analysis by the consultancy KPMG, entitled Climate changes your business,168 used this approach to come up with four main groups of sectors where the employment impact can be expected to be largest:
Case studies were carried out by the consultancy GHK for the European Commission in sectors thus identified as exposed to the impact of climate change — electricity generation, air transport, cement, retail, consumer goods, construction and haulage.169 The results of the case studies were presented and discussed at the June 2009 Restructuring Forum. The most common actions already taken by companies include:
In terms of employment, companies have tended to adapt the skills of their existing workforce, rather than increasing or decreasing the number of jobs. 2.3: CLIMATE-CHANGE POLICIES AND SKILLSThe developments described above can bring positive results only if the labour force is equipped with the right skills to take advantage of the opportunities. Indeed, the greening of the European economy will lead to a redefinition of many jobs across almost all sectors. Identifying the skills required to adapt to climate change and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions therefore has an important role to play in policy development. Moreover, this is not only a medium- to long-term issue. Already, climate-change policies have led to certain skill shortages in a number of sectors, such as renewable energy, energy and resource efficiency, building renovation, construction, environmental services and manufacturing. Clean technologies require skills in the application, adaptation and maintenance of technology. The requirements for green skills will change progressively as climate-change-related jobs change. This will happen in three ways (which link to the quantitative impacts identified by UNEP — see above):
New jobs in ‘green’ sectors can lead to increased investment in the skills of the workers concerned. There are examples where demand for employees with environmental skills has involved (re)training schemes for workers. Moreover, some sources suggest that there will be a shift towards integrated technology and away from ‘end-of-pipe’ through natural market changes but also though policies. As a consequence, high-skill jobs would be promoted at the expense of low-quality jobs.170 2.4: THE TRANSITION TO A LOW-CARBON ECONOMYThe transition from high-carbon to low-carbon employment is not without its difficulties. Even if all of the above analysis is correct — that is, the most affected sectors are correctly identified, the kind of job changes (destruction, creation and modification) is correctly analysed and the needs for skills development are appropriately addressed by adequate training offers — there will still be a significant amount of friction on the labour market. For example: there is a potential cost of the transition for employees in ‘losing’ sectors; some categories of workers may have difficulties in seizing the opportunities for reskilling; new jobs may not be located in the same areas where the old jobs were lost; training will take time; and there may be potential obstacles to the development of new jobs in the ‘winning’ activities (access to raw materials, high barriers to entry, low salaries etc.). As a result, there is a danger that unemployment of displaced workers could become structural. It is therefore paramount that the social partners engage in a permanent analysis of ongoing climate-change-related industrial restructuring within the existing framework of social dialogue, trying to anticipate potential problems and jointly developing solutions that take account of both businesses’ needs for flexibility and workers’ needs for security. Renewable energy stands at the heart of a low-carbon economy. The next section therefore discusses the implications of the growing renewable energy sector for employment and the labour market as a whole. Directory: pub -> ECD ECD -> Commission staff working document ECD -> Table of contents I instruments Error: Reference source not found ECD -> Table of annexes annex I: Glossary 4 ECD -> En commission of the european communities brussels, 12. 12. 2008 com(2008) 853 final annex annex II to VIII ECD -> Report from the commission to the european parliament and the council european community safa programme aggregated information report ECD -> Report from the commission european community safa programme ECD -> Commission of the european communities brussels, 24 2008 ECD -> Commission staff working document ECD -> Communication from the commission to the european parliament, the council, the european economic and social committee and the committee of the regions ECD -> Annex I iccat species Download 1.43 Mb. Share with your friends:
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